Dance With Me
by MapleleafCameo
Summary: John discovers Sherlock's secret love of dancing. He does something about it. Not tied in with S3. A little bit of fluff, a little bit of angst, a little bit of dancing. A birthday fic for the lovely junejuly15. Happy Birthday!


**A/N: This is for the lovely and talented junejuly15 for her birthday, a good friend and a lovely person. I asked her for 3 words and the situation. She gave me flattering, delectation, and ballroom dancing and awkward declaration of love for the situation. I hope this is acceptable. **

**Thanks to mattsloved1 for looking this over and for the little tidbit about the impropriety of the waltz;)**

**I do not own but I had fun playing:)**

"_Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."  
_― Voltaire

"_Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free."_  
― Rumi

If it hadn't been for the murder of Liam Hastings, John might never have known.

Or at least, it might have been a long time coming. So in a way, deep, deep down in the secret not so nice part of his soul, he was a little bit grateful to Liam Hastings for getting himself killed.

They had just wrapped up the case, ending where it had started, at the hotel in which Liam had been shot. It had thrown a pall of confusion upon the hotel guests and the owner. The tedium of paperwork had been left to John, as Sherlock, now that the case was over, had left. His brilliant flurry of deductive reasoning completed, he had wandered off, something catching his attention and left John to finish up the grilling from the officer in charge, who was not Lestrade, which made Sherlock even less interested in hanging around.

After endless questions and a promise to drag Sherlock into NSY tomorrow to finish, John looked for the wayward detective. Nowhere in plain sight, he wondered if Sherlock had left completely and gone back to Baker Street without him. Just as he had pulled his mobile out, ready to text and demand where Sherlock had gone, soft strains of music caught his ear. Curious, he went in search of the sound.

He rounded a corner of the hotel and there he could just make out the tall figure of his flatmate. Sherlock was leaning forward and appeared to be peering through the crack of a door. As John came closer, there was a look on Sherlock's face he hadn't seen before. Stopping to think about what he was seeing, he realized it wasn't an expression he couldn't easily place. And then, pulled from a long ago memory of his sister and a denied toy she had desperately wanted for Christmas, he did.

Wistful.

The expression upon Sherlock's face pushed up against the door was wistful, one of longing. It wasn't the kind of face John usually saw. Yearning yes, but usually toward something he shouldn't have, like extra kidneys Molly was just going to dispose of or access to a crime scene or even another helping of Mrs. Hudson's mincemeat tarts. They were things that were attainable and easily had. This time the look was attached to the idea of something that was not. Something he couldn't quite have.

John wasn't sure how he knew this in that brief flash of insight. It was probably linked to the same vein of silent communication the two men used so often it wasn't even thought of any more.

Moving closer he noticed a sign, large, flashy, one of those professionally made ones, big bold letters pronouncing _The International Ballroom Dancing Competition_. A smiling couple, arms gracefully placed around each other, heads tilted, both tuxedoed and ball gowned, a list of dates at the bottom of the poster. John remembered now, the owner had been insistent the competition continued despite the scandal of the murder in the hotel. He was already set to lose money over the whole affair. The cancellation of the ballroom dancing would have probably forced him to sell, if he had had to return all of the money put up by the competition.

As John crept closer, bemusement on his face at what Sherlock was thinking, his friend finally noticed him and with a seemingly guilty start, turned to John and narrowed his eyes.

"What?" he said, rather huffily.

"What yourself," John replied mildly.

"I am studying the movement of the dancers. It is a little known fact…"

"Save it, Sherlock. I could see your face. What's up with the ballroom dancing?"

To his surprise, Sherlock began to blush and he cast his gaze downward. John could almost see him thinking furiously. He shrugged into himself a little and then he wrapped his arrogant, imperious persona over top and the Sherlock John knew so well replaced the lost, little boy outside the sweet shop.

"It's nothing." He straightened and stalked off in the direction of the lobby, out the doors and toward the cabs lined up nearby.

John followed, amusement, bemusement and wonder rattling around, pinball style, in his head. He tucked the image of the last ten minutes away, keeping it secret and safe, a treasured thought of a different sort of Sherlock.

It wasn't until a few years later, after a two year bitter and lonely separation John had thought was more permanent, after an awkward and hard reveal that fortunately did not in fact culminate in Sherlock jumping out of a cake, John pulled that memory out, shined it up a bit and decided to do something about it. He had found himself staring at the detective, unbidden, his mind wandering to an endless possibility of 'what if'. He had experienced the dread and horror of Sherlock's loss, he welcomed him back reluctantly and then as they fell into their easy patterns of friendship and eventual forgiveness, John began to wonder what else there could be. There was comfort and familiarity in the thought of Sherlock, in his arms, in his bed, waking up to him in the morning, growing old together. He caught the occasional odd look from Sherlock as well and he hoped in his heart that it wasn't wishful thinking and that perhaps Sherlock wanted more as well. Before, John had always had safe, platonic, brother-in-arms type feelings toward Sherlock, but lately they had stretched into something more real, something more tangible, visible.

Sherlock looked up from the laptop, his for a change, he was typing on and watched as John came in through the door. Coat hung up and shoes toed off, John smiled at him, a secret smile. After all these years there really was nothing John could hide from Sherlock. As much as he thought he could.

"Who is she?" Sherlock asked, a tired sort of acceptance crept through his voice.

John stopped on his way to the kettle and looked puzzled. "Who's who?"

"What do you mean who's who? Who's the girl, the new conquest, the one you are trying to impress. That who. Who is she?"

"There isn't a girl."

"Really John, what do you take me for? All these years and you think you can fool me? Please." Hurt scorched the patterns of his speech.

"Sherlock, there's no one." John titled his head.

"You have been going out for the last three weeks on a regular basis, every Tuesday and Thursday. You do not have work at the clinic on those nights because your schedule, which has not changed much in the last year, is on the fridge and I can clearly see those nights are free. You leave precisely at 6:05 and return precisely at 10:35, so factoring travel and time spent you are obviously going somewhere on the tube that takes an average of twenty five minutes to get there and twenty-five minutes to return, leaving you with ten minutes either end to remove and put on your coat and shoes. This leaves you three and a half hours to provide witty banter and flirting toward a female. I can smell her perfume, _Tresure_ by _Lancome_, from here. She must bath in it for it to cling to you the way it does." Sherlock' s voice was getting gradually harsher and the speed with which the words shot out of his mouth was increasing until they were practically flung toward John at warp speed.

"Ummm.."

"Oh yes, brilliant response. Thank you for telling me all about it in your ordinary, limited way."

"Sherlock,…"

But Sherlock had flung himself on the couch and wrapped his blue dressing gown tightly around himself and wouldn't respond. John walked toward the still form and tentatively reached a hand out, the silk clad shoulder shifted from under his questioning touch and an audible huff of air reverberated from the figure.

John sighed and sat on the floor beside the couch, back toward Sherlock and head leaning against him.

"Sherlock, I'm not sure what's gotten into you, but I am not seeing anyone. I, umm, I have been, er, I have been…"

The body on the couch shifted and Sherlock peered over his shoulder at John. "Oh for heaven's sake, just tell me."

"I've been taking dance lessons."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"But why?"

There was a heavy silence.

"John?" A meek and thoughtful Sherlock reached to his friend. He could not have said earlier where the rush of anger and frustration had come from when John had entered the flat, but it had poured out of him, lancing a boil of pure jealousy at the thought of John once again dating, which had lead to the idea of John marrying and leaving Sherlock behind, so that by the time John returned, he was acquainted and close with the idea of John being gone from his side and after the two years of being away from him, he did not think he could bear the loneliness of it all.

The beloved and accustomed face turned his way, the skin pink, infused with the colour of a blush, looked somewhat embarrassed and yet hopeful, as John murmured, "for you, you idiot."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Who else? There is no one else, Sherlock. There never has been, there never will be." Honest, wonderful, incredible, loyal John, eyes opened wide, no guile or reticence in his expression, continued, "I was thinking about the time we investigated that murder at the hotel, Hastings it was, and I saw you watching the dancing. It stuck in my head. I wanted to…"

"You wanted to what?"

John reached back and rubbed at his neck, "I don't know. It seems ridiculous now that you've found out."

Sherlock sat up and slid to the floor to sit beside John. "No, no, not ridiculous. Tell me."

"Well, I wanted to learn how to dance. I, I wanted to dance with you. It was the way you looked, see, as if the only thing you really wanted was to throw open the doors to that room and join in the dancing. It stuck with me." He paused and a shade of sorrow floated across the surface. "I thought about it some when you were dead. I thought, how sad you never got the chance to do it. So when you came back, that second chance I got with you, after a time I thought, maybe I could learn and, well, umm, we could, you know, we could…"

"Dance?"

"Uh, yeah, that." The heat of John 's confession seem to dissipate a little, now that his secret was released, but he was looking at the floor and Sherlock desired to see his face, what thoughts were painted there. A hand was lifted and placed gently under a stubborn chin and John's head was carefully titled back and around so that he was forced to meet Sherlock's eyes.

"John, that is, without a doubt, the most incredible gift anyone has thought to get for me. Ever. It is extraordinarily flattering and I just don't quite know what I am supposed to do now." Sherlock's face, reminiscent in its openness of the night of John discovering his wish to dance, was flushed.

John blinked and then stood, his hand held out toward Sherlock.

"Dance with me," was offered and "of course" was given. John placed his hand upon Sherlock's waist, low and close. Sherlock put his upon John's shoulder and both reached for the other's hand, holding on with the trembling of expectation. John cleared his throat. "I am only good at the waltz. The rest I really don't do so well." He blushed again, a becoming shade upon his skin, Sherlock thought. "I did some research before I started. Looked up a few things. You do know that when the waltz was first introduced it was quite scandalous."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It was described in the 1825 Oxford English Dictionary to be considered 'riotous and indecent'."

"Really. How intriguing."

"Yes, before that most dances were in groups, with other couples. One simply did not dance alone with one partner."

"I would think that perhaps the fact that one was forced to pull one's partner close," and Sherlock did just that, "and your body would be pressed up, full length, against your partner's'' and Sherlock's was, "and you would be able to feel the heartbeat and pulse of your partner and perhaps other things as well, because you would be so incredibly close, your skin and their skin, brushing up against each other's, all of that friction and heat radiating between the two, would have something to do with the wickedness of it."

"Yes, I agree." John's voice was low and husky and Sherlock could almost caress it, there for his delectation and enjoyment.

The two men began to sway back and forth, in three quarter time, the flat quiet and still, no music was perceptible except between John and Sherlock. No music was needed. Their eyes locked upon each other's face, they communicated in the way they always did, silent and full of understanding, linked. Inside their communion, the music of a waltz rose up in the air between them.

When the unheard music came to an end, Sherlock released John's hand and once more placed it on John's face and titled his chin.

He leaned in close.

"I should like to kiss you."

"I would like that."

Their lips touched for the first time and the feeling of heat and longing flashed between them, a flash fire, but contained and only between the two. The kiss was deepened and mouths moved slowly and with the understanding that it would lead to more and more and more, leading to gentle nips and an intimate slide of tongues. Hands shifted and if it had been possible for either to get any closer they would have.

"Sherlock?"

"Mmmmm?'

"Come to my bed?"

"Yes, John." The two drew apart and hands clasped they climbed the stairs up to John's room.

In the dark the music continued and they joined in an older dance, one with passionate touches and fervid kisses, legs tangled around one another, bodies shed of clothes and skin touching skin, music built between, deep within, and crashed over like a wave, glorious and bright.

With wonder in his eyes, Sherlock lifted his head to stare at his John. Stare until John grinned at him. A trembling hand ran through the riotous curls, looking more untamed and sensual than John had ever thought possible. The hand clenched and released the weight of Sherlock's hair not to tame it but to revel in its disobedient, chaotic luxury.

"John?"

"Yes?"

But Sherlock just smiled, a rare and exquisite smile, more open and honest than his cache of client smiles. He laid his head back, ear pressed to John's chest, hands clutching the strong shoulders, mindful of the left one, the rhythm of their hearts thudding throughout his thoughts. John wrapped his arms around Sherlock and held him close and he chuckled quietly.

"What?"

"I should have asked you to dance sooner." The feel of Sherlock's smile tickled his skin and John drew him up and with a simple, loving, exquisite kiss the music began to play once more.


End file.
